Eating less meat is "essential" to ensure future demand for food can be met and "dangerous" climate change avoided, Cambridge experts have warned.

A study by leading university researchers in Cambridge and Aberdeen found food production alone could exceed targets for greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 if current trends continue.

Population growth and the global shift towards "meat-heavy Western diets" has meant increasing agricultural yields will not meet projected food demands for the expected 9.6 billion world population, it said.

Increased deforestation, fertiliser use and livestock methane emissions are likely to cause greenhouse gas emissions from food production to rise by almost 80 per cent, experts from Cambridge University and University of Aberdeen found.

Lead researcher Bojana Bajzelj, from the University of Cambridge's department of engineering, said: "Agricultural practices are not necessarily at fault here - but our choice of food is.

"It is imperative to find ways to achieve global food security without expanding crop or pastureland.

"Food production is a main driver of biodiversity loss and a large contributor to climate change and pollution, so our food choices matter."

He added: "Cutting food waste and moderating meat consumption in more balanced diets, are the essential 'no-regrets' options."

According to the study in Nature Climate Change, current trends in food production will mean that by 2050 cropland will have expanded by 42 per cent and fertiliser use increased by 45 per cent over 2009 levels.

A further tenth of the world's pristine tropical forests would disappear over the next 35 years, it said.

The study's authors tested a scenario where all countries were assumed to have an "average" balanced diet - without excessive consumption of sugars, fats, and meat products.

The average balanced diet used in the study was a "relatively achievable goal", the researchers said, which included two 85g portions of red meat and five eggs per week, as well as a portion of poultry a day.

"This significantly reduced the pressures on the environment even further," they said.

Co-author Professor Pete Smith, from the University of Aberdeen, said: "Unless we make some serious changes in food consumption trends, we would have to completely de-carbonise the energy and industry sectors to stay within emissions budgets that avoid dangerous climate change.

"That is practically impossible - so, as well as encouraging sustainable agriculture, we need to re-think what we eat."

Cambridge co-author Prof Keith Richards said: "This is not a radical vegetarian argument; it is an argument about eating meat in sensible amounts as part of healthy, balanced diets.

Eating plants removes the very living objects that use CO2 as "food"!! So eating more plants means less plants to "eat" CO2, meaning larger carbon footprint! Not to mention the amount of gas produced from the digestive systems of vegetarians!!!!
Eat more meat & natural fats!!!! Sugar comes from plants and that is the worst "food" to put in your body!!!!
Pork is one of the best foods for all round nutrition & the so-called "nutritionists" that have got everything wrong so far (surprise surprise!) and Muslim/Jewish community's are missing out on the benefits of eating porcine products!
Eating pork stops you from smelling (it's true!!!) & a bacon sandwich is one of the best "comfort" foods for raising a persons mood!!!

This has been known for a long time. The most recent research showed that red meat is terrible in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. We are better off eating poultry or pork. People also tend to provide portions of meat that are beyond what we need.

Various climate experts have been saying this for years. It is hardly news. The more relevant statistic that should get us thinking is that it takes ten times as much land to produce the nutrition our bodies need in meet as it does in non-meet food stuffs. It is about balance, we do not need to eat meat at three meals a day. However for some of our nutrition, the easiest way to get it is in the form of meat or dairy.